Understanding Black Feminism Through the Lens of Beyoncé’S Pop Culture Performance Kathryn M
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Seattle aP cific nivU ersity Digital Commons @ SPU Honors Projects University Scholars Spring June 7th, 2018 I Got Hot Sauce In My Bag: Understanding Black Feminism Through The Lens of Beyoncé’s Pop Culture Performance Kathryn M. Butterworth Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/honorsprojects Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Race, Ethnicity and Post- Colonial Studies Commons Recommended Citation Butterworth, Kathryn M., "I Got Hot Sauce In My Bag: Understanding Black Feminism Through The Lens of Beyoncé’s Pop Culture Performance" (2018). Honors Projects. 81. https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/honorsprojects/81 This Honors Project is brought to you for free and open access by the University Scholars at Digital Commons @ SPU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ SPU. I GOT HOT SAUCE IN MY BAG: UNDERSTANDING BLACK FEMINISM THROUGH THE LENS OF BEYONCÉ’S POP CULTURE PREFORMANCE by KATHRYN BUTTERWORTH FACULTY ADVISOR, YELENA BAILEY SECOND READER, CHRISTINE CHANEY A project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University Scholars Program Seattle Pacific University 2018 Approved_________________________________ Date____________________________________ Abstract In this paper I argue that Beyoncé’s visual album, Lemonade, functions as a textual hybrid between poetry, surrealist aesthetics and popular culture—challenging the accepted understanding of cultural production within academia. Furthermore, Lemonade centers black life while presenting mainstream audiences with poetry and avant-garde imagery that challenge dominant views of black womanhood. Using theorists bell hooks, Stuart Hall, Patricia Hill- Collins and Audre Lorde, among others, I argue that Beyoncé’s work challenges the understanding of artistic production while simultaneously fitting within a long tradition of black feminist cultural production. Butterworth 2 Introduction Beyoncé sitting on top of a police car, in a flooded post-hurricane Katrina neighborhood wearing work boots and a makeup-less face. Images of the South at twilight. A child dancing in front of a line of riot police. Beyoncé in black, surrounded by men in front of a planation home, braids to her knees, a wide brimmed hat covering her face, her middle fingers up. These are all images from Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade. Directed by Kahil Joseph, and Beyoncé herself, the album was released on April 23rd 2016, featuring music that transverses genre—including reggae, pop, blues, hip-hop, soul, gospel, country, and rock. In addition to transcending the boundaries of musical genres, Lemonade alternates between the poetry of British-Somali author Warsan Shire and Beyoncé’s own music, pushing the boundaries of what one expects from the music industry. Historically, music videos have been a visual accompaniment to the music, not a commentary on the music itself. Thus, Lemonade is atypical for a mainstream studio album; not only because it is presented as a visual album, but also because it utilizes avant-garde, surrealist aesthetics and features poetry by black feminist author Warsan Shire. Lemonade is presented in twelve chapters, each of them a stage of grief about Beyoncé’s husband, Jay Z’s infidelity and each corresponding with a song. The chapters are entitled, “Denial”, “Anger”, “Apathy”, “Emptiness”, “Accountability”, “Reformation”, “Forgiveness”, “Resurrection”, “Hope”, “Redemption” and “Formation”. Each chapter a stage of reconciliation and grief between Jay Z and Beyoncé, functioning as a larger metaphor for the systemic injustice of racism. Using black feminist theory, I argue that Lemonade challenges conventional understandings of cultural production by creating a textual hybrid between popular culture, surrealist aesthetics, and poetry. Moreover, Beyoncé uses this textual hybrid to present mainstream audiences with a Butterworth 3 commentary on black life and womanhood that ultimately challenges dominant views of black womanhood. In order to fully understand the significance of Lemonade, both as an innovative piece of cultural production and an example of Beyoncé’s progressing feminism, it is necessary to review the artist’s history as a pop music icon. Beyoncé has been training as a performer from a very young age. At eight, she started in her first music group called Girls Tyme—later known as Destiny’s Child. She gained popularity when Destiny’s Child rose to fame in the late 1990’s. They produced chart topping hits that held feminist themes; such as “Survivor”, a song expressing the speaker’s determination and certainty of her independence with lyrics like “I’m a survivor, I’m not gon’ give up…I will survive, keep on surviving.” Similarly, their song “Independent Woman”, which boasts of female economic independence, has lyrics that declare proudly “I depend on me” and “all the woman, who independent, throw your hands up at me”. After Destiny’s Child broke up in 2006 Beyoncé embarked upon a solo career. Her career has spanned over ten years and produced chart-topping single after chart-toping single. Beyoncé’s early music still included feminist themes, such as “Irreplaceable,” a song that called out a romantic partner for thinking they were irreplaceable. Yet despite these clearly feminist themes, Beyoncé did not identify as a feminist publicly until 2013, over ten years into her career in the public image. Beyoncé’s work holds deep cultural significance; she is undeniably influential. Over the course of her career Beyoncé has been a 20-time, Grammy award winner and a 23-time nominee. As a 24-time winner, she is the most awarded musician at the MTV music video awards. She is a friend of President Barack Obama and sang the national anthem at his 2013 inauguration. Beyoncé is more than a pop star; her influence extends beyond the realm of popular music. She Butterworth 4 has become a predominant figure in 21st century popular feminism and was nominated as one of Time magazine’s 2016 Person of the Year – a nomination that she lost to Donald Trump. Time magazine speaks of her activism stating Beyoncé “chose blackness even as many Americans rejected it, taking sides and never wavering” (Harris-Perry). Through this background of understanding Beyoncé’s history we come to understand the context that Lemonade was produced within. Unlike Beyoncé’s previous work, Lemonade functions in brand new ways, doing important work. One cannot understand the cultural significance of Lemonade and the progress Beyoncé has made if they don’t understand the body of her previous work. Beyoncé has been repeatedly recognized for her work as a black feminist pop figure, even so her relationship with feminism continues to be a contentious one. Many feminists take issue with her presentation, her lyrics, and her lack of intersectionality. Although her earlier songs featured strong feminist themes, she never fully “came out” as a feminist until later in her career. She did not explicitly and openly identify as a feminist until her appearance on the 2013 cover of Ms. Magazine, a magazine co-founded by Gloria Steinem, a prominent figure in second wave feminism. Second wave feminism is largely centered around white womanhood; thus it is worth noting that because she was part of this movement, Steinem’s brand of feminism was also centered around white womanhood. Ms. Magazine’s inclusion of Beyoncé broadened their scope of feminism and added weight to the significance of her appearance. This cover was accompanied by an article entitled “Beyoncé’s Fierce Feminism” signifying her acceptance, by some standards, into the feminist community. Even after this cover, Beyoncé’s brand of feminism has been widely debated in the feminist community. Hobson, the author of the Ms. Magazine article, talks about the reception of this article in her paper “Feminists Debate Beyoncé”. She explains that women wrote into Ms. Magazine after Beyoncé was on the cover, Butterworth 5 making “harsh, derogatory comments: from calling the pop star ‘a fur-wearing stripper’ and a ‘whore’ to discrediting her feminism for ‘calling women bitches’” (Hobson 17). Featuring Beyoncé on this cover started an important ongoing conversation of Beyoncé’s feminism. Although it is important to look at everything presented to us as consumers before simply digesting information, calling other women strippers does not promote the agenda of feminism. Yet Beyoncé’s choice to label herself as a feminist makes space for a larger discussion of feminism as a whole, whether in positive or negative ways she is still doing important work. Although Beyoncé very publicly declared herself to be a feminist during the 2014 Music Video Awards, she received much criticism for her performance. She performed the eleventh track on her self titled album, “***Flawless” (arguably a feminist anthem), which includes a sample from the Nigerian feminist author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk entitled “We Should All Be Feminists.” When Beyoncé preformed this song she projected the word “Feminist” behind her silhouette in large block letters while the sample from Adichie’s TED talk played in the background, offering a definition of feminism. In this performance she sings about her husband and dances in a leotard, which directly challenges the widely popular stereotype that feminism is equated with man hating and the desexualization of women. Jessica Bennett discusses this in her article for Time magazine, “How to Reclaim the F-Word? Just Call Beyoncé.” Bennett explains, “No, you don’t have to like the way Beyoncé writhes around in that leotard…. whether you like it or not she’s accomplished what feminists have long struggled to do. She’s reached the masses. She has, literally, brought feminism into the living rooms of 12.4 million Americans”(Bennett). Beyoncé now holds an unprecedented platform, which earns respect in of itself. There are flaws in Beyoncé’s feminism yet she still has an important voice. Butterworth 6 The criticisms of Beyoncé’s feminism are valid, yet these issues need to come to popular culture in some way.